INTRODUCTION
God created the world with covenantal dynamics wound through everything. This has been the source of our Fall into sin in Adam, but it is also the source of our salvation and new life in Christ. Analogous covenants exist in the family and public square.
One the one hand this explains many of the challenges we face as families and nations, and on the other hand, this is also an invitation into God’s blessing. And the Bible teaches that the curses of covenant rebellion are not as powerful as the blessings of covenant faith (Ex. 32:6-7).
The Text: “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
The Bible teaches that both mothers and fathers have significant duties in the raising of children. This is evident in the biblical requirement of honor and obedience of both mother and father (Eph. 6:1, Ex. 20:12). But the Bible also clearly lays this responsibility at the feet of fathers (Eph. 6:4). This is because of the covenantal nature of the family (Eph. 5:23), which is related the covenantal nature of the world: Adam was the father of the human race (Rom. 5:19), and Abraham is the father of all the faithful (Rom. 4:16). Thus, while mothers play essential roles, fathers are responsible to see to it that their children are not provoked to wrath but raised in the culture and counsel of the Lord Jesus (Eph. 6:4). And because God built the world this way, accepting this responsibility in faith is the path of God’s blessing.
COVENANT RESPONSIBILITY
Part of our problem is that we have been marinating in individualism for so long, we often think as mere individuals and think responsibility is either/or rather than both/and. Covenantal thinking teaches us to see the world as layered with loyalties, obligations, and duties (and therefore blessings). Cain was an early individualist: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer was yes, as a brother. A husband is the head of his wife, like the head of a body. This doesn’t mean the wife is passive or has no obligations; it simply means that she is to give input and support as her husband’s body. And a husband is required to nourish/feed his wife as his own body, and the same word is used here for “raising/feeding” children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Practically, this means that a father is responsible for the culture of his family, including the discipline and education of his children. Thankfully, there has been a great revolt among thinking Christians over the last several decades pulling kids out of public schools, but sometimes this has resulted in Christian education being led and dominated by women and moms. This temptation is understandable when the men are hustling to put food on the table and pay the bills, but fathers are responsible to oversee this as well. There is plenty of room for delegating, but it must be true delegation and not abdication.
NOT PROVOKING
Colossians says something similar to what is said in Ephesians: “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21). Fathers are often tempted to harshness, and then sometimes in reaction to their failures, absent and distant. But both provoke children to anger.
Faithful fathers imitate the Father: they are present, engaged, consistent, responsible, and generous. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father or lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Js. 1:17). Of course no earthly father matches this perfectly, and therefore our task is to point to that perfect Father with everything we can. One teacher describes faithful leadership as “failing in the right direction.”
While there really is a dearth of fathers in our land, our hope is not in perfect fathers. Our hope is in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
CULTURE & COUNSEL
The words translated “nurture” and “admonition” are paideia and nouthesia, which literally mean culture and counsel. A culture is a way of life: ways of speaking, dressing, eating, celebrating, customs, traditions, and worship. Counsel is wisdom, teaching, knowledge, history. We see both of these in the great Shema:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Dt. 6:4-9).
All of this is why Christian fathers must provide a distinctly Christian education for their children. This is why we have banded together in schools and coops to accomplish this. This is why our deacons have a Christian education fund to help families accomplish this.
CONCLUSIONS
Psalm 127 says that unless God builds the house and guards the city, the builders and watchmen labor and watch in vain. And no amount of anxiety or sleeplessness can make up for this. We must have God’s blessing on our houses and cities and nations. And the psalm says that one of the principle means by which God does this is through the inheritance of children. Children are arrows in the hands of a warrior; they will stand with their fathers in the city gates.
Children are these weapons in our hands as they are received by covenantal faith in the promises of God. This faith is expressed by Joshua’s ancient confession of faith: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:15). But this is not a mere intellectual ascent. This is a living faith that believes and acts, trusts and obeys, takes responsibility and hustles in the right direction, looking to your Father for blessing.